How to delete all emails on Gmail at once

The trick to how to delete all emails on Gmail is one small link that most people never notice. Ticking the "select all" box only picks the 50 conversations on the screen. A line of text then appears offering to select every conversation in the folder or search, and that link is what turns a 20,000-email clean-up into three clicks.

Delete every email in your inbox

1. Open mail.google.com on a computer.
2. Tick the checkbox at the top-left, above the first email. All conversations on the page are selected.
3. A message appears above the list: "All 50 conversations on this page are selected. Select all 12,480 conversations in Primary". Click that link.
4. Click the trash icon and confirm the bulk action.

With a very large mailbox, Gmail may need a minute and may ask you to repeat the step. To wipe everything, not just the inbox, click All Mail in the left menu first and do the same there.

Delete all emails from one sender

1. Type from:newsletter@example.com in the search bar and press Enter.
2. Tick the top checkbox, then click Select all conversations that match this search.
3. Click the trash icon.

If they are still writing to you, unsubscribe or block the sender at the same time, or the pile will grow back.

Delete all Promotions, Social or unread emails

The same three steps work with any search. These are the ones worth knowing:

You can combine them freely. A minus sign in front of a term excludes it, which is how you protect things you want to keep.

Delete all emails on the Gmail app (iPhone and Android)

The app is built for a few messages at a time:

1. Press and hold one email until it is ticked.
2. Tap Select all at the top if your version shows it, or tap the round icons of other emails to add them.
3. Tap the trash icon.

This covers only what has loaded on screen, so for thousands of emails it is slow. The faster route on a phone is to open mail.google.com in Chrome or Safari, request the desktop site from the browser menu, and follow the computer steps above.

Empty the Trash to get the space back

Deleted mail sits in Trash for 30 days and still counts towards your storage until it is gone. To remove it immediately:

1. In the left menu click More > Trash.
2. Click Empty Trash now at the top.

Do the same in Spam. After this the emails cannot be recovered by you. If freeing space is the real goal, the biggest wins are usually large attachments and Google Photos, covered in Gmail storage full?

Before you delete: three things to protect

• Receipts, tickets and tax documents. Search for words like receipt OR invoice OR order and star or label the ones you need.
• Account emails. Some services send the only copy of a licence key or recovery code by email.
• A backup. Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) exports your whole mailbox as a file you can keep on your own drive.

If you only want a tidy inbox and not free space, choose Archive in place of the trash icon. Archived mail leaves the inbox but stays searchable in All Mail.

Common questions

How do I delete more than 50 emails at once in Gmail?

Tick the top checkbox, then click the "Select all conversations" link that appears above the list. You can also raise the page size to 100 in Settings > General > Maximum page size.

Can I get emails back after deleting them?

Yes, for 30 days: open Trash, select them and move them to the inbox. After the Trash is emptied they are gone.

Why did my storage not change after deleting?

The mail is still in Trash, or the space is being used by Drive and Photos. The storage figure can also take a day to update.

Can Gmail delete old emails automatically?

Partly. A filter can delete matching mail as it arrives, but Gmail has no built-in rule that removes messages once they reach a certain age. Run an older_than: search every few months.

Get a free temporary email Free up Gmail storage